Los Angeles history

Santa Susana Meltdown

Times reporter Louis Sahagun takes a look at the July 14, 1959, meltdown at the Santa Susana Field Lab:

On the morning of July 14, 1959, Sodium Reactor Experiment
trainee John Pace received the bad news from a group of supervisors who
had, he recalled, "terribly worried expressions on their faces."

A
reactor at the Atomics International field laboratory in the Santa
Susana Mountains had experienced a power surge the night before and
spewed radioactive gases into the atmosphere.

"They were terrified that some of the gas had
blown over their own San Fernando Valley homes," recalled Pace, who was
20 at the time. "My job was to keep radiation out of the control room."Read more >>>